. >> look at george w. bush. in 2000 he said he would have a restrained, humble foreign policy. then 9/11 hit. and now we've been dealing with wars for over a decade. we have already made reference to it while the chinese have been investing in africa. we've been dropping bombs in iraq. we are now in afghanistan. 12 years in. $2 billion a week. our defense budget keeps exploding. so an iranian crisis comes at the absolute worst time for this country. >> that's what i was saying early on. >> on so many points. >> things could change dramatically this year. >> richard and i have talked about this a lot. in search of a metaphor, have i been thinking about the islamic role in africa and the middle east, think of it size a large, very dry forest after years of drought. and a lightning strike anywhere, which is unanticipated, starts a brush fire. and then it goes across. we just saw what happened in algeria. what's going on in syria at the moment. and we are not dealing state-to-state. there's an entirely new set of rules for dealing with that critical part of the world, to say nothin